He had not long to wait.  But when the wrapper was taken off the clay figures, he uttered a low snarl, and his flushed face turned pale.  Sounds of indignation broke from the bystanders; the blood rose to his cheeks again, and, shaking his fist, he muttered unintelligible threats, while his eyes wandered again and again to the caricatures.  They attracted his attention more than all else, and as in an April day the sky is alternately dark and bright, so red and white alternated in his face.  Then, while Alexander replied to a few questions, and assured him that the host of the “Elephant” had been very angry, and had gladly handed them over to him to be destroyed, Caracalla seemed to become accustomed to them, for he gazed at them more calmly, and tried to affect indifference.  He inquired of Philostratus, as though he wished to be informed, whether he did not think that the artist who had modeled these figures must be a very clever follow; and when the philosopher assented conditionally, he declared that he saw some resemblance to himself—­in the features of the apple-dealer.  And then he pointed to his own straight legs, only slightly disfigured by an injury to the ankle, to show how shamefully unfair it was to compare them with the lower limbs of a misshapen dwarf.  Finally, the figure of the apple-dealer—­a hideous pygmy form, with the head of an old man, like enough to his own—­roused his curiosity.  What was the point of this image?  What peculiarity was it intended to satirize?  The basket which hung about the neck of the figure was full of fruit, and the object he held in his hand might be an apple, or might be anything else.

With eager and constrained cheerfulness, he inquired the opinion of his “friends,” treating as sheer flattery a suggestion from his favorite, Theocritus, that this was not an apple-dealer, but a human figure, who, though but a dwarf in comparison with the gods, nevertheless endowed the world with the gifts of the immortals.

Alexander and Philostratus could offer no explanation; but when the proconsul, Julius Paulinus, observed that the figure was offering the apples for money, as Caesar offered the Roman citizenship to the provincials, he knew for what, Caracalla nodded agreement.

He then provisionally appointed Aristides to the coveted office.  The Egyptian should be informed as to his fate.  When the prefect was about to remove the figures, Caesar hastily forbade it, and ordered the bystanders to withdraw.  Alexander alone was commanded to remain.  As soon as they were together, Caesar sprang up and vehemently demanded to know what news he had brought.  But the young man hesitated to begin his report.  Caracalla, of his own accord, pledged his word once more to keep his oath, and then Alexander assured him that he knew no more than Caesar who were the authors of the epigrams which he had picked up here and there; and, though the satire they contained was venomous in some cases, still he, the sovereign of the world, stood so high that he could laugh them to scorn, as Socrates had laughed when Aristophanes placed him on the stage.